When Montrealer Brenda Biasutti gets a phone call from her husband it's really a long, long, long-distance call that has travelled from a place without phone booths, cellphone coverage, or even area codes.
Biasutti, 51, is the wife of Canadian astronaut Bob Thirsk, who has set a new Canadian longevity record in outer space by remaining on the International Space Station since last May.
Other spouses might be forgiven for feeling a twinge of envy at the effort Thirsk makes to get a call to his wife.
Biasutti, a mother of three, says she often receives such pleasant surprises at random moments in the middle of the day.
There was the time she answered her cellphone at the airport.
"I went to pick up my daughter at the airport and I was in a coffee shop,'' she told The Canadian Press in an interview on Tuesday.
"I got a phone call thinking it was my daughter _ but it was Bob.''
Coffee fix
The irony of the moment was not lost on the couple. Thanks to the dearth of gravity in space, Thirsk must drink coffee through a straw and Biasutti was well aware of her husband's passion for a hot cup of java.
"So it was quite amusing to tease him and let him know I was ordering a coffee and a pastry,'' she added.
Biasutti says she will sometimes be cooking dinner at the family home in Houston when a call arrives from her husband of 25 years.
She isn't the only family member who hears from her extra-terrestrial partner. Thirsk armed himself with a directory of cellphone numbers before blasting off into the ether.
Thirsk has even surprised his three children _ Lisanne, 22, Elliot, 19, and 13-year-old Aidan.
"The children can be hanging out with their friends and they will get a phone call,'' Biasutti said while visiting the Canadian Space Agency, south of Montreal, on Tuesday.
"They often like to pass the phone around and ask their friends if they want to say hi to Bob.''
Keeps in touch
Thirsk, a B.C. native, also keeps in touch with his mother who lives on Vancouver Island and his brother and sister in Calgary.
The veteran astronaut also calls Biasutti's own family in Montreal, including her 80-year-old mother, 82-year-old father and older sister.
He may even get a chance to place a long-distance order for food. Some Italian restaurants won't take a pizza order beyond a three-kilometre radius _ but Thirsk appears set to hit the culinary jackpot.
"My mother, being Italian, is looking forward to cooking a good Italian meal for him when he returns,'' Biasutti added.
She met Thirsk while she was working as a receptionist at the Montreal General Hospital and he was a medical student.
They were married in 1984 _ about a year after Thirsk had applied to become one of Canada's first astronauts.
